To think that 4 G.C.S.E's needed to do business studies is ridiculous

[magicalmadmadamim]

My eldest DS is 16 and been at college since September. He has 2 G.C.S.E equivalent certificates in English and Maths.
I'm sure back when I was in college business studies was always a foundation course?
He really wanted to do business studies and they have put him on some really rubbish courses that he is super bored with.
Is it me or is education getting much harder now?
Hardly any of his school friends passed any g.c.s.e's :(

Unfortunately, I think functional skills qualifications are perceived as lesser qualifications compared to GCSEs because young people who take them are unable to pass foundation GCSE maths and English, so the logic is that if they are equivalent to GCSEs why haven't the young people taken and passed them at GCSE?

I admit that I was guilty of thinking that as well as most posters because I had no idea that they were considered an equivalent. I suspect that most employers think so as well.

Congratulations to those whose DC have struggled and managed pass them though. That must have been quite an achievement.

What I don’t understand is why this has come as a shock to you @magicalmadmadamim

I suppose as the non-resident parent you wouldn’t have engaged with the school, but why hasn’t your son’s father? Are relations between you so bad that your ex hasn’t kept you informed of what is happening? And the fact that so many children have failed their GCSEs doesn’t say much about the school. Was it a pupil referral unit? Why do you not know much about your child’s education? Why did you have to distance yourself from your child?

There is more to this than meets the eye.

If you were an employer and had two candidates who otherwise looked equal you'd take the one with GCSEs not functional skills qualifications.

It's a tough market out there. He's not fighting an up hill battle from the bottom of the pile in a competitive world.

The attitude of him and his parents is going to be everything at this point.

None of them are getting it yet even now. He's fucked.

Wrong. Functional Skills level 2 is GCSE equivalent. Entry level and Level one FS qualifications are obviously lower than FS2, so Fs2 are not the lowest level qualification you can get?

Nothing sinister, we moved abroad so we could afford to buy. Covid hit our businesses hard in the UK and we had better opportunities leaving. We gave my son the option to come with us, he chose to stay and finish education in the UK. I make regular trips back and he spends the summer with us.

What education? Great mates btw.

This has badly backfired.

You dumped him for financial reasons, didn't think about who he was hanging around with and clearly haven't had a clue how bad things had got with school.

It would have been apparent at least two or three years ago it wasn't working out as planned. He would have failed his exams regardless of the expulsion and this would have been apparent for some years.

Stop making excuses. Face up to your part in this and where you have ended up.

Other people don't just move abroad when the going gets tough. They stick it out for the kids.

None of them are getting it yet, even now

That is the key. No one has learned anything from the experience. Not even the adults involved. As was said wayyyy back in the thread, education is a ladder and the OP's son must build on every step. His life isn't over at 16. He can move on from this and improve his chances, but so much has to change. There has to be a fundamental shift in values and attitude in the son and his parents.

It's outrageous - these days you can't even bully a Muslim, for being a Muslim, film it, and put in on the internet for the whole world to see, without some bloody do-gooder 'playing the racist card'. It's political correctness gone mad. The OP's son is clearly a fine individual - a prince of a boy - who has been subject to worse unfair persecution than Jesus himself.

Why would they bother to go through all the paperwork to exclude a disruptive child 2 months before GCSE OP? There would only have been a short time to go before study leave started anyway, so it's not as if it was a case of not wanting him ruining lessons anymore. If it wasn't that serious, they could easily have suspended him for a week or two until he would have been off anyway.

He didn't just mess up once. He showed persistent poor behaviour: showing up late, messing about in classes, disrespecting staff and making it harder for those of his classmates who were trying to concentrate in class.
In most families, the need to respect the staff, and not dick around in class and disrupt the lessons is instilled during the early years of primary school. OP is still making "boys will be boys" excuses for a 16 year old. I feel sorry for him, really he's been failed.
I'd also challenge his "it wasn't racist, because we're mates" excuse about the video - I know people from a predominantly white area who genuinely thought that the (only) South Asian boy in their class was their friend - He told me years later that what he mostly remembers from their time at school was that all of the group 'banter' which involved him was focussed on his race, and he'd be happy never to see any of them again.

We live next door to a lady and her adult son. He's in his 30s. He's up all night, often playing loud video games or rap music. He has a dog that he never walks which is always barking. He doesn't work. He had a girlfriend but she got sick of his abuse, jealousy and cheating and left. He has at least one child who occasionally visits. He spends a lot of time on the phone shouting at people and threatening them.

He's in the room next to ours (the master bedroom) because he wanted it, even though his mum also wanted it and she's the one renting the house. So we have to hear all his bullshit through the wall. He spends most of his time smoking weed. She says he's her "baby" and he's completely indulged by her.

Seems like if your parents are willing to enable you, you never have to grow up.

The point isn’t the level of qualifications - it’s the lack of effort, hard work, and appropriate behaviour that’s the problem. If the OP’s son had worked his arse off to get his functional skills then that’s a
huge achievement and one to be proud of. But it sounds like he’s actually fucked about, misbehaved, and done the bare minimum, and therefore not achieved what he might have been capable of achieving. This suggests to me that he’s not been given much in the way of guidance or firm boundaries from his parents.

Ah OK. So it's everyone else's fault. Expelled for no reason, of course.... hahahaha sounds like the apple didn't fall far from the tree.

Only a hate crime then. 🤡

Too funny!

Ok, they are the lowest qualification that a 16+ child in mainstream education with no SEN can get.

The fact that children in special schools can achieve qualifications in independent life skills is not really relevant to this boy, who simply hasn’t done any work for the past five years. It is disrespectful to children with SEN who do work hard, to conflate the two situations.

Entry level qualifications were never going to be on offer for this boy, and he is even turning his nose up at doing his level 2 qualifications because he thinks he’s too good for them.

Wrong again plenty of children get less than a grade 4 . In their GCSE,s and it's classed as a level 1 qualification, and they wont have SEN either .

That was quoting @Tigerbalmshark
And can posters stop assuming that children who are not academic must have SEN.

I know. Especially when waiting just a couple of years would have seen him out of education - what was the urgency to buy a house? I can’t get my head round moving overseas during my child’s important GCSE years particularly when the father works such long hours and isn’t able to be around to supervise homework etc.

Is this a joke?

add in OP’s mention of “side hustle” and it all sounds even stranger

I agree. This boy obviously feels no one has prioritised his education so why should he?

Try to get him on an apprenticeship course. He will need to grow up quickly, but he will get real experience and get paid. Business studies courses are more academic and I suspect he will struggle. I am not sure why you think it is suitable bearing in mind his lack of GCSEs - there are other less academic courses he can look at. And apprenticeship courses are not all about building. My son did an accountancy apprenticeship and has subsequently qualified as an accountant and is doing very well.

What kind of apprenticeship course is going to take this loser?

We are looking into an IT apprenticeship as a possibility, there are a few local to him. He just needs to bear in mind that it will be more travelling and full time hours, right now 2 of the days at college are half days.